Latest from EU Member States Archives - Page 2 of 72 - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Poland And Denmark Have An Opportunity To Shape EU Agriculture, If Only They Seize It

April 1, 2025 ARC

The Commission has published “A Vision for Agriculture and Food”, where it scales back the green ambitions of the Farm-to-Fork strategy, passing the buck to Member States to implement sufficient measures to meet EU climate goals. However, the future of EU agriculture will also be shaped by negotiations on several crucial files—including a new budget, a 2040 climate target and CAP reform. The 2025 Polish and Danish EU presidencies will help to set the pace and scope of agricultural policies for years to come. Op-ed by Simone Højte, Emmanuel Molding Nielsen, Adrianna Wrona and Johannes Flatz. […]

Letter From A Future Farmer | Living Alternatives

March 28, 2025 Jessica Girardi

Can principles of local action, mutual aid and intergenerational cohesion help to revive rural areas? Jessica Girardi immersed herself in this question during a month-long Forum Synergies scholarship hosted by the Porto di Terra collective in Sicily in August-September 2024. She found living proof that rural areas can be dynamic, progressive and experimental. Letter by Jessica Girardi. […]

Eco-schemes – Running to stand still?

March 6, 2025 Oliver Moore

Introduced under CAP 2023-2027, eco-schemes aim to promote biodiversity, climate resilience and environmental sustainability EU farming. Yet, a report by NABU and Birdlife finds their potential remains largely untapped due to persistent challenges in design, funding and implementation. Oliver Moore breaks down key insights of the report. […]

The Food Sovereignty Scandal Made in France

March 5, 2025 ARC

France has more than enough land to feed its inhabitants. Yet almost half of French farmland serves the global export trade. Food sovereignty will remain a pipe dream as long as the absurd globalised food system continues to hold sway, says a new report by Terre de Liens. The Rural Resilience project reports from the launch event in Paris. […]

How Has The CAP’s Green Architecture Changed Around Europe?

February 24, 2025 ARC

The CAP has shapeshifted significantly thanks to a series of exemptions and, crucially, a fundamental change in its regulation in 2024. But how have these changes impacted the green architecture of the policy? Here we present a collaborative article on the changes, in particular for the ‘good agricultural and environmental conditionalities’ on peatland and wetlands (GAEC 2) and on space for nature (GAEC 8). National environmental and agricultural coalitions from around Europe – from Poland, Ireland, Czechia, France, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria – have all fed their insights into this article. […]

From Protests & Polarisation to Weaving Common Ground – A Year of Rural Resilience

February 5, 2025 ARC

We invite you to retrace with us the Rural Resilience project journey in 2024. Together we look back on a year that took us from rage and rollbacks to a European triangle of rural action. […]

WHES | “We Must Continue” – Determined Farmers & Friends Will March On

January 30, 2025 Claudia Schievelbein

As Germany’s election season plays out, agriculture and environmental issues are notably absent from campaign agendas. Nonetheless, at Berlin’s annual Wir haben es satt protest, farmers and activists marched – without the usual tractors – demanding a food system that protects the climate, nature, animal welfare and rural communities. Hours earlier, the alliance held a final meeting with outgoing Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir. Claudia Schievelbein reports. […]

Hand in Hand for the Future of Farming – Call For Courage at #WHES25

January 24, 2025 ARC

At this year’s Wir haben es satt! Demonstration in Berlin, thousands of farmers, activists and consumers gathered in front of the Reichstag to demand bold action on agri-food policy, urging the next government to deliver fair prices, support for agroecological farming and decisive climate action ahead of a pivotal federal election. […]

From Local Roots to Global Vision: ARC2020 President Welcomes 2025

January 13, 2025 Hannes Lorenzen

From rural resilience to democratic revival, ARC2025 charts a transformative path for Europe. At first glance it may sound just like a wishful dream. But in fact it is an invitation to take action. Europe will be challenged this year by those who do not want to see it united and strong. But old nationalism and new geopolitical confrontations from East and West will also stimulate our civic courage. We see so many pioneering local initiatives leading the way across Europe setting up new farming and food systems: Farmers, local businesses and leaders of change, including researchers and forward-thinking politicians. Have a dream! It helps against sleepwalking into a nightmare. Taking action with others will make the dream, however big, a reality! […]

Letter From The Farm | The West of Ireland Never ‘Dewilded’

December 20, 2024 Martino Newcombe

Martino Newcombe runs a small farm in Co. Galway in the west of Ireland. Biodiversity is a central focus of his work. He practices conservation grazing on marshy terrain with Kerry cattle, a hardy ancient Irish dairy breed. In his stewardship of the land he is careful to heed the inherent understanding of deep ecology passed down from previous generations. In this first letter from his farm, Martino explains that you don’t have to be a cow to tell milk from cream. […]

BTV’s Cost: A Farmer Caught Between the Virus and the System

November 27, 2024 Marie Halicki

Marie Halicki, a newly established farmer in the French Alps shares with ARC2020 her fight against the BTV in 2024. […]

Behind the Danish Green Tripartite – Democracy, Smallholders and the Rights of Rural People

November 27, 2024 ARC

Ole Kjaerulff Davidsen of Frie bonder – Levende Land argues that The Green Tripartite Agreement in Denmark represents a worrying step backwards for democracy and human rights, excluding small farmers and rural organisations from decisions that deeply impact their lives. In so doing, it violates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants. Immediate action is needed to demand genuine democratic involvement and prioritise sustainable farming practices and rural rights that benefit people, nature, and the planet. […]

The Green Tripartite Agreement Locks in Industrial Ag and Biotech Solutionism

November 26, 2024 ARC

The Danish Green Tripartite could lock in the existing industrial farming system, based on the promises of questionable (bio)technologies. Denmark’s farming system needs a structural transformation and the use of GMOs should be tightly regulated to prevent further ecological damage. As it stands, this Agreement will do nothing to transform the farming sector in Denmark to a truly sustainable model. By June Rebekka Bresson (Noah, Denmark) and Franziska Achterberg (SOS, Germany). […]

Czech Republic | Fifty Years To Pay For A Farm

November 25, 2024 Terezie Daňková

A rural European gathering is a special moment. A time for those working on the ground in different territories and regions to compare notes on common challenges at local level, and reflect on European solutions. Access to land is increasingly a barrier for aspiring farmers across Europe, even as an ageing generation of farmers often fails to find a successor. At our European gathering in Plessé in 2022, Czech farmer Terezie Daňková realised how pervasive this issue is in other EU member states. […]

Weaving Common Ground – European Triangle for Rural Action

November 25, 2024 ARC

On 28 November – 1 December, in the rural village of Grzybów, Poland, ARC2020 is co-organising a European gathering of sustainable rural initiatives to take stock of a new political situation of Europe and to look into possibilities of cooperation: “Weaving Common Ground” between rural and urban people. In collaboration with our local hosts, the Ecological Folk High School and Ziarno association, the gathering will conclude a three-year cooperation of people in rural France, Germany and Poland. […]